Dogville 2003
According to von Trier, the point of the film is that "evil can arise anywhere, as long as the situation is righ
Prologue[edit]Dogville is a very small American town by an abandoned silver mine in the Rocky Mountains, with a road leading up to it and nowhere else to go but the mountains. The film begins with a prologue in which a dozen or so of the fifteen citizens are introduced. They are portrayed as lovable, good people with small flaws which are easy to forgive.
The town is seen from the point of view of Tom Edison Jr., an aspiring writer who procrastinates by trying to get his fellow citizens together for regular meetings on the subject of "moral rearmament". It is clear that Tom wants to succeed his aging father, a physician, as the moral and spiritual leader of the town.
Chapter 1
In which Tom hears gunfire and meets GraceIt is Tom who first meets Grace Mulligan, who is on the run from gangsters who presumably shot at her. Grace, a beautiful but modest woman, wishes to keep running, but Tom assures her that the mountains ahead are too difficult to pass. As they talk, the gangsters approach the town, and Tom quickly hides Grace in the nearby mine. One of the gangsters asks Tom if he has seen the woman, which he denies. The gangster then offers him a reward and hands him a card with a phone number to call in case Grace shows up.
Tom decides to use Grace as an "illustration" in his next meeting—a way for the townspeople to prove that they are indeed committed to community values, can receive a gift, and are willing to help the stranger. They remain skeptical, so Tom proposes that Grace should be given a chance to prove that she is a good person. Grace is accepted for two weeks in which, as Tom explains to her after the meeting, she must gain the friendship and trust of the townspeople.
Chapter 2
In which Grace follows Tom's plan and embarks upon physical laborOn Tom's suggestion, Grace offers to do chores for the citizens—talking to the lonely, blind Jack McKay, helping to run the small shop, looking after the children of Chuck and Vera, and so forth. After some initial reluctance, the people accept her help in doing those chores that "nobody really needs" but which nevertheless make their lives easier. As a result, she becomes an accepted part of the community.
Chapter 3
In which Grace indulges in a shady piece of provocation.In tacit agreement, Grace is expected to continue her chores, which she does gladly, and is even paid small wages in return. Grace begins to make friends, including Jack, who pretends that he is not blind. She earns his respect upon tricking him into admitting that he is blind. Once the two weeks are over, everyone votes at the town meeting that Grace should be allowed to stay.
Chapter 4
appy times in DogvilleThings go well in Dogville until the police arrive to place a "Missing" poster featuring Grace's picture and name on the mission house. With the townspeople are divided as to whether they should cooperate with the police, the mood of the community darkens somewhat.
Chapter 5[edit]Fourth of July after allStill, things continue as usual until the 4th of July celebrations. After Tom awkwardly admits his love to Grace and the whole town expresses their agreement that it has become a better place thanks to her, the police arrive again to replace the "Missing" poster with a "Wanted" poster. Grace is now wanted for participation in a bank robbery. Everyone agrees that she must be innocent, since at the time the robbery took place, she was doing chores for the townspeople every day.
Nevertheless, Tom argues that because of the increased risk to the town now that they are harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal, Grace should provide a quid pro quo and do more chores for the townspeople within the same time, for less pay. At this point, what was previously a voluntary arrangement takes on a slightly coercive nature as Grace is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, being very amenable and wanting to please Tom, Grace agrees.
Chapter 6
In which Dogville bares its teethAt this point the situation worsens, as with her additional workload, Grace inevitably makes mistakes, and the people she works for seem to be equally irritated by the new schedule – and take it out on Grace. The situation slowly escalates, with the male citizens making small sexual advances to Grace and the females becoming increasingly abusive. Even the children are perverse: Jason, the perhaps 10-year-old son of Chuck and Vera, asks Grace to spank him, until she finally complies after much provocation (von Trier has noted that this is the first point in the film where it is clear how completely Grace's lack of social status and choices makes her vulnerable to other people manipulating her).[4] She is soon abused by adults as well.
Chapter 7
In which Grace finally has had enough of Dogville, conspires to leave town, and again sees the light of day.After Tom proposes his idea to help her escape, Vera blames Grace for spanking her son Jason and for seducing her husband Chuck. She wants her punished and humiliated for her supposed acts; Grace invokes how she has taught her children about the philosophy of stoicism but Vera turns that claim against her as well. Grace knows she should escape, and bribes the freight truck driver Ben to smuggle her out of town in his apple truck. En route, she is raped by Ben, after which the truck lumbers only to return Grace to Dogville.
The town agrees that they must not let her escape again. The money paid to Ben to help Grace escape had been stolen by Tom from his father—but when Grace is blamed for the theft, Tom refuses to admit he did it because, as he explains, this is the only way he can still protect Grace without people getting suspicious. So Grace finally becomes a slave, although she has had this status looming over her for much of the film. She will be raped and abused for free by the people of the town.
Chapter 8
In which there is a meeting where the truth is told and Tom leaves (only to return later).This culminates in a late night general assembly in which Grace—following Tom's suggestion—relates calmly all that she has endured from everyone in town. Embarrassed and in complete denial, the townspeople finally decide to get rid of her. Tom goes to inform her of this, and in the process abuses her trust again by attempting to rape her. Realizing how locked the situation has become, Tom ends up personally calling the mobsters in order to have her rendered to them. The others agree to this line of action.
Chapter 9
And ending In which Dogville receives the long-awaited visit and the film endsWhen the mobsters finally arrive, they are welcomed cordially by Tom and an impromptu committee of other townspeople. Grace is then freed by the indignant henchmen, and we finally learn who she really is: the daughter of a powerful gang leader who ran away because she could not stand her father's dirty work. Her father motions her into his Cadillac and argues with her about issues of morality. After some introspection, Grace reverses herself and comes to the conclusion that Dogville's crimes cannot be excused due to the difficulty of their circumstances. Tom, who has become aware that the mobsters pose a threat to himself and the town, is momentarily remorseful, but rapidly descends into rationalization for his actions. Grace returns, sadly, to her father's car, accepts his power, and uses it to command that Dogville be removed from the earth.
The town is destroyed, all its citizens are murdered by the gangsters on direct order from Grace, with the exception of Tom, whom she executes personally with a revolver right after he applauds the effectiveness of her use of illustration. After the massacre, the gangsters hear a barking sound from one of the houses. It is the dog Moses. A gangster aims a gun at the dog, but Grace commands that it should live: 'He's just angry because I once took his bone'.
Dogville (2003)
Synopsis
Dogville is a very small American town in the Rocky Mountains with a road leading up to it, but nowhere to go but the mountains. The film begins with a prologue in which we meet a dozen or so of the fifteen citizens. They are portrayed as lovable, good people with small flaws which are easy to forgive.
The town is seen from the point of view of Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an aspiring writer who procrastinates by trying to get his fellow citizens together for regular meetings on the subject of "moral rearmament." It is clear that Tom wants to succeed his aging father as the moral and spiritual leader of the town.
It is Tom who first meets Grace (Nicole Kidman), who is on the run from gangsters who apparently shot at her. Grace, a beautiful but modest woman, wants to keep running, but Tom assures her that the mountains ahead are too difficult to pass. As they talk, the gangsters approach the town, and Tom quickly hides Grace in a nearby mine. One of the gangsters asks Tom if he has seen the woman, which he denies, and so the gangster offers him a reward and hands him a card with a phone number to call in case Grace shows up.
Tom decides to use Grace as an "illustration" in his next meeting - a way for the townspeople to prove that they are indeed committed to community values, and willing to help the stranger. They remain skeptical, so Tom proposes that Grace should be given a chance to prove that she is a good person. Grace is accepted for two weeks in which, as Tom explains to her after the meeting, she has to convince the townspeople to like her.
On Tom's suggestion, Grace offers to do chores for the citizens - talking to the lonely, blind Jack McCay (Ben Gazzara), helping to run the small shop, looking after the children of Chuck (Stellan Skarsgård) and Vera (Patricia Clarkson), and so forth. After some initial reluctance, the people accept her help in doing those chores that "nobody really needs" but which nevertheless make life better, and so she becomes a part of the community.
In tacit agreement, she is expected to continue her chores, which she does gladly, and is even paid small wages in return. Grace begins to make friends, including Jack, who pretends that he is not blind. Grace tricks him into admitting that he is blind, earning his respect. After the two weeks are over, everyone votes that she should be allowed to stay.
But when the police arrive to place a "Missing" poster with Grace's picture and name on it on the mission house, the mood darkens slightly. Should they not cooperate with the police?
Still, things continue as usual until the 4th of July celebrations. After Tom awkwardly admits his love to Grace and the whole town expresses their agreement that it has become a better place thanks to her, the police arrive again to replace the "Missing" poster with a "Wanted" poster. Grace is now wanted for participation in a bank robbery. Everyone agrees that she must be innocent, since at the time the robbery took place, she was doing chores for the townspeople every day.
Nevertheless, Tom argues that because of the increased risk to the town now that they are harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal, Grace should provide a quid pro quo and do more chores for the townspeople within the same time, for less pay. At this point, what was previously a voluntary arrangement takes on a slightly coercive nature as Grace is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, being very amenable and wanting to please Tom, Grace agrees.
At this point the situation worsens, as with her additional workload, Grace inevitably makes mistakes, and the people she works for seem to be equally irritated by the new schedule and take it out on Grace. The situation slowly escalates, with the male citizens making small sexual advances to Grace and the female ones becoming increasingly abusive. Even the children are perverse: Jason (Miles Purinton), the perhaps 10-year-old son of Chuck and Vera, asks Grace to spank him, until she finally complies after much provocation. Soon thereafter Chuck returns home and rapes Grace, as it becomes obvious that she is hardly able to defend herself against exploitation.
After Tom discusses the possibility of escape with her, Grace is blamed by Vera both for spanking Jason and for being raped by Chuck. In revenge, Vera threatens Grace with destroying the porcelain figurines created by the town shop that she had acquired with the little wages she was given, Grace begs for mercy, reminding Vera of how she taught her children about stoicism. In response, Vera challenges Grace to stand up without shedding a tear while she destroys the first two of the porcelain figurines. Grace not being able to hold her tears, Vera destroys the remaining figurines. The symbol of her belonging in the town gone, she now knows that she must leave. With the help of Tom and Ben, the freight driver, she attempts escape in his apple truck, only to find herself raped by Ben and then returned to the town.
The town agrees that they must not let her escape again. The money that she used to pay Ben had been taken by Tom from his father, and Grace is blamed for the theft. Tom refuses to come forward because, he explains, this is the only way he can still protect Grace without people getting suspicious. At this point, Grace's status as slave is finally confirmed as she is collared and chained to a large iron wheel which she must carry around with her, too heavy to allow her to move anywhere outside the town. More humiliatingly still, a bell is attached to her collar and announces her presence wherever she goes. Tom is the only male citizen of the town that does not rape her.
This culminates in a late night general assembly in which Grace following Tom's suggestion relates calmly all that she has endured from everyone in town. Embarrassed and in complete denial, the townspeople finally decide to get rid of her. When Tom informs Grace to console her, he attempts to make love to her, having been the only adult male townperson who hasn't had sex with her. Grace, however, refuses to have sex with him. Angry partly at Grace's rejection, but even more at himself for his realization that he would eventually stoop to force himself upon her like everyone else in the town, Tom ends up personally calling the mobsters, and later proposes to unanimous approval that she be locked up in her shack.
When the mobsters finally arrive, they are welcomed cordially by Tom and an impromptu committee of other townspeople. Grace is then freed and we finally learn who she really is: the daughter of a powerful gang leader who ran away because she could not stand her father's dirty work. Her father confronts her in his big limousine and tells her that she is arrogant for not holding others to the same high standards to which she holds herself. At first she refuses to listen, but as she looks again upon the town and its people, she is compelled to agree: she would have to condemn them to the worst possible punishment if she held them to her own standards, and it would be inhumane not to do so.
So she accepts to be again her father's daughter, and immediately demands that the whole town be eliminated. In particular, she gives the order to have Vera look on at the murder of each of her children, having been told that it would stop if she can hold back her tears. The film ends in a crescendo of violence: the town is burned and all its citizens are brutally murdered by the gangsters on direct order from Grace, with the exception of Tom, whom she kills personally with a revolver. As the ashes of Dogville smolder around her, she finds and spares the only surviving resident, Moses the Dogville dog. Ironically, the only "dog" that hasn't wronged her was the town dog that had disappeared while the town was revealing its true nature.
Synopsis
Dogville is a very small American town in the Rocky Mountains with a road leading up to it, but nowhere to go but the mountains. The film begins with a prologue in which we meet a dozen or so of the fifteen citizens. They are portrayed as lovable, good people with small flaws which are easy to forgive.
The town is seen from the point of view of Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an aspiring writer who procrastinates by trying to get his fellow citizens together for regular meetings on the subject of "moral rearmament." It is clear that Tom wants to succeed his aging father as the moral and spiritual leader of the town.
It is Tom who first meets Grace (Nicole Kidman), who is on the run from gangsters who apparently shot at her. Grace, a beautiful but modest woman, wants to keep running, but Tom assures her that the mountains ahead are too difficult to pass. As they talk, the gangsters approach the town, and Tom quickly hides Grace in a nearby mine. One of the gangsters asks Tom if he has seen the woman, which he denies, and so the gangster offers him a reward and hands him a card with a phone number to call in case Grace shows up.
Tom decides to use Grace as an "illustration" in his next meeting - a way for the townspeople to prove that they are indeed committed to community values, and willing to help the stranger. They remain skeptical, so Tom proposes that Grace should be given a chance to prove that she is a good person. Grace is accepted for two weeks in which, as Tom explains to her after the meeting, she has to convince the townspeople to like her.
On Tom's suggestion, Grace offers to do chores for the citizens - talking to the lonely, blind Jack McCay (Ben Gazzara), helping to run the small shop, looking after the children of Chuck (Stellan Skarsgård) and Vera (Patricia Clarkson), and so forth. After some initial reluctance, the people accept her help in doing those chores that "nobody really needs" but which nevertheless make life better, and so she becomes a part of the community.
In tacit agreement, she is expected to continue her chores, which she does gladly, and is even paid small wages in return. Grace begins to make friends, including Jack, who pretends that he is not blind. Grace tricks him into admitting that he is blind, earning his respect. After the two weeks are over, everyone votes that she should be allowed to stay.
But when the police arrive to place a "Missing" poster with Grace's picture and name on it on the mission house, the mood darkens slightly. Should they not cooperate with the police?
Still, things continue as usual until the 4th of July celebrations. After Tom awkwardly admits his love to Grace and the whole town expresses their agreement that it has become a better place thanks to her, the police arrive again to replace the "Missing" poster with a "Wanted" poster. Grace is now wanted for participation in a bank robbery. Everyone agrees that she must be innocent, since at the time the robbery took place, she was doing chores for the townspeople every day.
Nevertheless, Tom argues that because of the increased risk to the town now that they are harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal, Grace should provide a quid pro quo and do more chores for the townspeople within the same time, for less pay. At this point, what was previously a voluntary arrangement takes on a slightly coercive nature as Grace is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, being very amenable and wanting to please Tom, Grace agrees.
At this point the situation worsens, as with her additional workload, Grace inevitably makes mistakes, and the people she works for seem to be equally irritated by the new schedule and take it out on Grace. The situation slowly escalates, with the male citizens making small sexual advances to Grace and the female ones becoming increasingly abusive. Even the children are perverse: Jason (Miles Purinton), the perhaps 10-year-old son of Chuck and Vera, asks Grace to spank him, until she finally complies after much provocation. Soon thereafter Chuck returns home and rapes Grace, as it becomes obvious that she is hardly able to defend herself against exploitation.
After Tom discusses the possibility of escape with her, Grace is blamed by Vera both for spanking Jason and for being raped by Chuck. In revenge, Vera threatens Grace with destroying the porcelain figurines created by the town shop that she had acquired with the little wages she was given, Grace begs for mercy, reminding Vera of how she taught her children about stoicism. In response, Vera challenges Grace to stand up without shedding a tear while she destroys the first two of the porcelain figurines. Grace not being able to hold her tears, Vera destroys the remaining figurines. The symbol of her belonging in the town gone, she now knows that she must leave. With the help of Tom and Ben, the freight driver, she attempts escape in his apple truck, only to find herself raped by Ben and then returned to the town.
The town agrees that they must not let her escape again. The money that she used to pay Ben had been taken by Tom from his father, and Grace is blamed for the theft. Tom refuses to come forward because, he explains, this is the only way he can still protect Grace without people getting suspicious. At this point, Grace's status as slave is finally confirmed as she is collared and chained to a large iron wheel which she must carry around with her, too heavy to allow her to move anywhere outside the town. More humiliatingly still, a bell is attached to her collar and announces her presence wherever she goes. Tom is the only male citizen of the town that does not rape her.
This culminates in a late night general assembly in which Grace following Tom's suggestion relates calmly all that she has endured from everyone in town. Embarrassed and in complete denial, the townspeople finally decide to get rid of her. When Tom informs Grace to console her, he attempts to make love to her, having been the only adult male townperson who hasn't had sex with her. Grace, however, refuses to have sex with him. Angry partly at Grace's rejection, but even more at himself for his realization that he would eventually stoop to force himself upon her like everyone else in the town, Tom ends up personally calling the mobsters, and later proposes to unanimous approval that she be locked up in her shack.
When the mobsters finally arrive, they are welcomed cordially by Tom and an impromptu committee of other townspeople. Grace is then freed and we finally learn who she really is: the daughter of a powerful gang leader who ran away because she could not stand her father's dirty work. Her father confronts her in his big limousine and tells her that she is arrogant for not holding others to the same high standards to which she holds herself. At first she refuses to listen, but as she looks again upon the town and its people, she is compelled to agree: she would have to condemn them to the worst possible punishment if she held them to her own standards, and it would be inhumane not to do so.
So she accepts to be again her father's daughter, and immediately demands that the whole town be eliminated. In particular, she gives the order to have Vera look on at the murder of each of her children, having been told that it would stop if she can hold back her tears. The film ends in a crescendo of violence: the town is burned and all its citizens are brutally murdered by the gangsters on direct order from Grace, with the exception of Tom, whom she kills personally with a revolver. As the ashes of Dogville smolder around her, she finds and spares the only surviving resident, Moses the Dogville dog. Ironically, the only "dog" that hasn't wronged her was the town dog that had disappeared while the town was revealing its true nature.
Nicole Kidman...Grace Margaret Mulligan
Harriet Andersson...Gloria
Lauren Bacall...Ma Ginger
Jean-Marc Barr...The Man with the Big Hat
Paul Bettany...Tom Edison
Blair Brown...Mrs. Henson
James Caan...The Big Man
Patricia Clarkson...Vera
Jeremy Davies...Bill Henson
Ben Gazzara...Jack McKay
Philip Baker Hall...Tom Edison Sr.
Thom Hoffman...Gangster
Siobhan Fallon Hogan...Martha
John Hurt...Narrator (voice)
Zeljko Ivanek...Ben
John Randolph Jones...Gangster
Udo Kier...The Man in the Coat
Cleo King...Olivia
Miles Purinton...Jason
Bill Raymond...Mr. Henson
Chloë Sevigny...Liz Henson
Shauna Shim...June
Stellan Skarsgård...Chuck
Evelina Brinkemo...Athena
Anna Brobeck...Olympia
Tilde Lindgren...Pandora
Evelina Lundqvist...Diana
Helga Olofsson...Dahlia
Ulf Andersson...Additional Cast
Jan Coster...Additional Cast
Mattias Fredriksson...Additional Cast
Andreas Galle...Additional Cast
Barry Grant...Additional Cast
László Hágó...Additional Cast (as Lásló Hágó)
Niklas Henriksson...Additional Cast
Mikael Johansson...Additional Cast
Hans Karlsson...Additional Cast
Lee R. King...Additional Cast
Oskar Kirkbakk...Additional Cast
Ingvar Örner...Additional Cast
Erich Silva...Additional Cast
Kent Vikmo...Additional Cast
Eric Voge...Additional Cast
Ove Wolf...Additional Cast
Harriet Andersson...Gloria
Lauren Bacall...Ma Ginger
Jean-Marc Barr...The Man with the Big Hat
Paul Bettany...Tom Edison
Blair Brown...Mrs. Henson
James Caan...The Big Man
Patricia Clarkson...Vera
Jeremy Davies...Bill Henson
Ben Gazzara...Jack McKay
Philip Baker Hall...Tom Edison Sr.
Thom Hoffman...Gangster
Siobhan Fallon Hogan...Martha
John Hurt...Narrator (voice)
Zeljko Ivanek...Ben
John Randolph Jones...Gangster
Udo Kier...The Man in the Coat
Cleo King...Olivia
Miles Purinton...Jason
Bill Raymond...Mr. Henson
Chloë Sevigny...Liz Henson
Shauna Shim...June
Stellan Skarsgård...Chuck
Evelina Brinkemo...Athena
Anna Brobeck...Olympia
Tilde Lindgren...Pandora
Evelina Lundqvist...Diana
Helga Olofsson...Dahlia
Ulf Andersson...Additional Cast
Jan Coster...Additional Cast
Mattias Fredriksson...Additional Cast
Andreas Galle...Additional Cast
Barry Grant...Additional Cast
László Hágó...Additional Cast (as Lásló Hágó)
Niklas Henriksson...Additional Cast
Mikael Johansson...Additional Cast
Hans Karlsson...Additional Cast
Lee R. King...Additional Cast
Oskar Kirkbakk...Additional Cast
Ingvar Örner...Additional Cast
Erich Silva...Additional Cast
Kent Vikmo...Additional Cast
Eric Voge...Additional Cast
Ove Wolf...Additional Cast
Roger Ebert
April 9, 2004 |
Print PageLars von Trier exhibits the imagination of an artist and the pedantry of a crank in "Dogville," a film that works as a demonstration of how a good idea can go wrong. There is potential in the concept of the film, but the execution had me tapping my wristwatch to see if it had stopped. Few people will enjoy seeing it once and, take it from one who knows, even fewer will want to see it a second time.
WATCH NOW
The underlying vision of the production has the audacity we expect from Von Trier, a daring and inventive filmmaker. He sets his story in a Rocky Mountains town during the Great Depression, but doesn't provide a real town (or a real mountain). The first shot looks straight down on the floor of a large sound stage, where the houses of the residents are marked out with chalk outlines, and there are only a few props -- some doors, desks, chairs, beds. We will never leave this set, and never see beyond it; on all sides in the background there is only blankness.
The idea reminds us of "Our Town," but von Trier's version could be titled "Our Hell." In his town, which I fear works as a parable of America, the citizens are xenophobic, vindictive, jealous, suspicious and capable of rape and murder. His dislike of the United States (which he has never visited, since he is afraid of airplanes) is so palpable that it flies beyond criticism into the realm of derangement. When the film premiered at Cannes 2003, he was accused of not portraying Americans accurately, but how many movies do? Anything by David Spade come to mind? Von Trier could justifiably make a fantasy about America, even an anti-American fantasy, and produce a good film, but here he approaches the ideological subtlety of a raving prophet on a street corner.
The movie stars Nicole Kidman in a rather brave performance: Like all the actors, she has to act within a narrow range of tone, in an allegory that has no reference to realism. She plays a young woman named Grace who arrives in Dogville being pursued by gangsters (who here, as in Brecht, I fear represent native American fascism). She is greeted by Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an earnest young man, who persuades his neighbors to give her a two-week trial run before deciding whether to allow her to stay in town.
Grace meets the townspeople, played by such a large cast of stars that we suspect the original running time must have been even longer than 177 minutes. Tom's dad is the town doctor (Philip Baker Hall); Stellan Skarsgard grows apples and, crucially, owns a truck; Patricia Clarkson is his wife; Ben Gazzara is the all-seeing blind man; Lauren Bacall runs the general store; Bill Raymond and Blair Brown are the parents of Jeremy Davies and Chloe Sevigny. There are assorted other citizens and various children, and James Caan turns up at the end in a long black limousine. He's the gangster.
What von Trier is determined to show is that Americans are not friendly, we are suspicious of outsiders, we cave in to authority, we are inherently violent, etc. All of these things are true, and all of these things are untrue. It's a big country, and it has a lot of different kinds of people. Without stepping too far out on a limb, however, I doubt that we have any villages where the helpless visitor would eventually be chained to a bed and raped by every man in town.
The actors (or maybe it's the characters) seem to be in a kind of trance much of the time. They talk in monotones, they seem to be reciting truisms rather than speaking spontaneously, they seem to sense the film's inevitable end. To say that the film ends in violence is not to give away the ending so much as to wonder how else it could have ended. In the apocalyptic mind-set of von Trier, no less than general destruction could conclude his fable; life in Dogville clearly cannot continue for a number of reasons, one of them perhaps that the Dogvillians would go mad.
Lars von Trier has made some of the best films of recent years ("Europa," "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer In The Dark"). He was a guiding force behind the Dogme movement, which has generated much heat and some light. He takes chances, and that's rare in a world where most films seem to have been banged together out of other films. But at some point his fierce determination has to confront the reality that a film does not exist without an audience. "Dogville" can be defended and even praised on pure ideological grounds, but most moviegoers, even those who are sophisticated and have open minds, are going to find it a very dry and unsatisfactory slog through conceits masquerading as ideas.
Note No. 1: Although von Trier has never been to the United States, he does have one thing right: In a town, the smashing of a collection of Hummel figurines would count as an atrocity.
Note No. 2: I learn from Variety that "Dogville Confessions," a making-of documentary, was filmed, using a soundproof "confession box" near the soundstage, where actors could unburden themselves. In it, Stellan Skarsgard describes von Trier, who he has worked with many times, as "a hyper-intelligent child who is slightly disturbed, playing with dolls in a doll house, cutting their heads off with nail clippers." Von Trier himself testifies that the cast is conspiring against him. Variety thinks this doc would make a great bell and/or whistle on the eventual DVD.
Note No. 3. We should not be too quick to condemn Von Trier, a Dane, for not filming in the United States, when "The Prince & Me," a new Hollywood film about a Wisconsin farm girl who falls in love with the prince of Denmark, was filmed in Toronto and Prague.
April 9, 2004 |
Print PageLars von Trier exhibits the imagination of an artist and the pedantry of a crank in "Dogville," a film that works as a demonstration of how a good idea can go wrong. There is potential in the concept of the film, but the execution had me tapping my wristwatch to see if it had stopped. Few people will enjoy seeing it once and, take it from one who knows, even fewer will want to see it a second time.
WATCH NOW
The underlying vision of the production has the audacity we expect from Von Trier, a daring and inventive filmmaker. He sets his story in a Rocky Mountains town during the Great Depression, but doesn't provide a real town (or a real mountain). The first shot looks straight down on the floor of a large sound stage, where the houses of the residents are marked out with chalk outlines, and there are only a few props -- some doors, desks, chairs, beds. We will never leave this set, and never see beyond it; on all sides in the background there is only blankness.
The idea reminds us of "Our Town," but von Trier's version could be titled "Our Hell." In his town, which I fear works as a parable of America, the citizens are xenophobic, vindictive, jealous, suspicious and capable of rape and murder. His dislike of the United States (which he has never visited, since he is afraid of airplanes) is so palpable that it flies beyond criticism into the realm of derangement. When the film premiered at Cannes 2003, he was accused of not portraying Americans accurately, but how many movies do? Anything by David Spade come to mind? Von Trier could justifiably make a fantasy about America, even an anti-American fantasy, and produce a good film, but here he approaches the ideological subtlety of a raving prophet on a street corner.
The movie stars Nicole Kidman in a rather brave performance: Like all the actors, she has to act within a narrow range of tone, in an allegory that has no reference to realism. She plays a young woman named Grace who arrives in Dogville being pursued by gangsters (who here, as in Brecht, I fear represent native American fascism). She is greeted by Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an earnest young man, who persuades his neighbors to give her a two-week trial run before deciding whether to allow her to stay in town.
Grace meets the townspeople, played by such a large cast of stars that we suspect the original running time must have been even longer than 177 minutes. Tom's dad is the town doctor (Philip Baker Hall); Stellan Skarsgard grows apples and, crucially, owns a truck; Patricia Clarkson is his wife; Ben Gazzara is the all-seeing blind man; Lauren Bacall runs the general store; Bill Raymond and Blair Brown are the parents of Jeremy Davies and Chloe Sevigny. There are assorted other citizens and various children, and James Caan turns up at the end in a long black limousine. He's the gangster.
What von Trier is determined to show is that Americans are not friendly, we are suspicious of outsiders, we cave in to authority, we are inherently violent, etc. All of these things are true, and all of these things are untrue. It's a big country, and it has a lot of different kinds of people. Without stepping too far out on a limb, however, I doubt that we have any villages where the helpless visitor would eventually be chained to a bed and raped by every man in town.
The actors (or maybe it's the characters) seem to be in a kind of trance much of the time. They talk in monotones, they seem to be reciting truisms rather than speaking spontaneously, they seem to sense the film's inevitable end. To say that the film ends in violence is not to give away the ending so much as to wonder how else it could have ended. In the apocalyptic mind-set of von Trier, no less than general destruction could conclude his fable; life in Dogville clearly cannot continue for a number of reasons, one of them perhaps that the Dogvillians would go mad.
Lars von Trier has made some of the best films of recent years ("Europa," "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer In The Dark"). He was a guiding force behind the Dogme movement, which has generated much heat and some light. He takes chances, and that's rare in a world where most films seem to have been banged together out of other films. But at some point his fierce determination has to confront the reality that a film does not exist without an audience. "Dogville" can be defended and even praised on pure ideological grounds, but most moviegoers, even those who are sophisticated and have open minds, are going to find it a very dry and unsatisfactory slog through conceits masquerading as ideas.
Note No. 1: Although von Trier has never been to the United States, he does have one thing right: In a town, the smashing of a collection of Hummel figurines would count as an atrocity.
Note No. 2: I learn from Variety that "Dogville Confessions," a making-of documentary, was filmed, using a soundproof "confession box" near the soundstage, where actors could unburden themselves. In it, Stellan Skarsgard describes von Trier, who he has worked with many times, as "a hyper-intelligent child who is slightly disturbed, playing with dolls in a doll house, cutting their heads off with nail clippers." Von Trier himself testifies that the cast is conspiring against him. Variety thinks this doc would make a great bell and/or whistle on the eventual DVD.
Note No. 3. We should not be too quick to condemn Von Trier, a Dane, for not filming in the United States, when "The Prince & Me," a new Hollywood film about a Wisconsin farm girl who falls in love with the prince of Denmark, was filmed in Toronto and Prague.
'Dogville': It Fakes a VillageBy A. O. SCOTT
MARCH 21, 2004
DOGVILLE, the setting for Lars von Trier's new film of the same name, is a tiny, obscure town in the Colorado Rockies. The adult population numbers about 15, and during the Great Depression, when the film takes place, these people's lives are busy, joyless and harsh. The hard-bitten folk who inhabited the Northwestern factory town in ''Dancer in the Dark,'' Mr. von Trier's previous foray into Americana, at least had a community theater, but the most Dogville can offer is some meetings presided over by a self-styled intellectual named Tom Edison Jr. (the English actor Paul Bettany).
Dogville is, in short, a place where life seems to have been reduced to its crude minimum. A modern American happening upon ''Dogville,'' which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, will quickly become aware of what has been omitted. ''I deliberately took out religion,'' Mr. von Trier said in a recent telephone interview. Also, he might have added, such quintessential American passions as sports, popular culture and politics: one of the citizens does own a radio, but he snaps it off as soon as one of President Roosevelt's fireside chats comes over the airwaves. In ''Dancer in the Dark'' you could glimpse a framed photograph of President Eisenhower hanging on the wall, a curious touch in a movie supposedly set in 1964, but nonetheless a scrambled signal of some connection between the fictitious characters and the actual political entity they are supposed to inhabit. In the 1930's in Dogville, where the brief appearance of a constable is the only sign of the existence of the state, there are no pictures of F. D. R. hanging on the wall.
Then again, there aren't any walls. Nor are there any trees or houses or enclosed physical structures of any kind. There is nothing, in short, to mark Dogville as a place, American or otherwise: aside from one or two skeletal structures, an outcropping or two of painted styrofoam and a few pieces of furniture, Dogville is conjured out of chalk outlines and stark stage effects. The floor plans of the tiny houses are stenciled on the ground, as are invisible streets and phantom landmarks like the prized gooseberry bushes and the nonexistent dog whose nonetheless audible bark
signals the arrival of a stranger.
What happens to that stranger -- a woman named Grace, played with a flawless combination of vulnerability and cunning by Nicole Kidman -- constitutes Mr. Von Trier's latest American tragedy. Young Tom Edison, worried without any obvious reason that the town is in need of ''moral rearmament,'' wishes for a test of its virtues, a real-life ''illustration'' (one of his favorite words) of his vague notions of community and responsibility. Grace, who is fleeing from big-city gangsters, seems to offer a perfect opportunity. She is reluctant to impose on the town's kindness but also utterly helpless. Dogville rises to the challenge of her presence by opening its arms in generosity, and then enclosing her in a pious, self-justifying embrace of indentured servitude, humiliation and, eventually, sexual slavery.
It has been frequently noted that Mr. von Trier, a Dane, has never been to the United States. It was so frequently noted in discussions of ''Dancer'' that he was provoked to conceive an entire American trilogy, and to pre-empt objections by noting, in press materials, that the makers of ''Casablanca'' had never been to Morocco. Nor had Kafka been to the United States while writing ''Amerika.'' ''I must say I'm very fond of this idea that Kafka didn't go to America,'' Mr. von Trier said. ''For me it's about America, even though it's about what he had seen in Europe. Somehow America is a canvas that you can use. Of course the film is, like Kafka's book, inspired by my own meeting with not Americans but mostly Danish people. It could be a place anywhere.''
Tom Edison, who is at once Mr. von Trier's alter ego and, ultimately, his villain, might endorse this interpretation. Toward the end of the movie, after the true, ugly nature of the town and its people has been revealed, he conceives a novel -- maybe even a trilogy -- about the experiences of a town just like it. ''Why not just call it Dogville?'' Grace asks. ''No, no,'' he says, ''it has to be universal. A lot of writers make that mistake.'' It is a mistake Mr. von Trier is far too clever to avoid.
What makes ''Dogville'' so fascinating, and so troubling, is the tension between the universal and the specific. ''You mean, why not just call it Denmark?'' Mr. von Trier responded, mockingly, when asked about his choice. Because, of course, it couldn't possibly be Denmark. It's America. The script may have been written in Danish and then translated into the strange, mock-literary English the characters speak. The characters themselves may be played by a motley, international collection of actors ranging from Lauren Bacall to Chloë Sevigny to Stellan Skarsgard. (You can hardly expect a man who once cast Catherine Deneuve as a factory worker named Kathy to care much about authenticity.) But the clothes and folkways of Dogville harken unmistakably back to the land of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain and Sherwood Anderson, whose observations have been filtered through Mr. von Trier's equally unmistakable European sensibility. The movie presents a curious blend of the alien and the familiar: it is a fantasy of America, but not an American fantasy.
The sight of actors all occupying the same barren stage, and the knowledge that the camera will never leave this spot, induce a squirming, suffocating sense of claustrophobia, which may be part of Mr. von Trier's point. In his pitiless view, everyone lives in a fundamental state of isolation, but no one is ever alone. The illusion of intimacy is sustained by the shaky close-ups that have become hallmarks of his intrusive, unnerving camera style, but even the most secret moments seem at the same time to occur in full public view. One of the film's grimmest scenes, the first of several rapes, takes place in one of the houses, and the camera pulls back through the invisible walls to the streets of the town, where the other Dogvilleans are going about their desultory business. Their obliviousness to what is taking place in the children's bedroom over at Vera and Chuck's house seems like a malign and active refusal to acknowledge it, a symbol of the repressive, willed innocence that is among the town's many sins. The people of Dogville are proud, hypocritical and never more dangerous than when they are convinced of the righteousness of their actions. Grace, as it happens, may not be much better.
Who are these people? What is this place? The formal audacity of ''Dogville'' is hard to separate from the provocations of its story and setting. Mr. von Trier, who has never seen the United States, nonetheless seems to suggest that he can see through it -- through us. It is hardly surprising that some Americans have taken this personally, and responded to this brutal allegory in a defensive tone. Last spring in Cannes, where geopolitical tensions between Europe and the United States hung in the air like a bad smell, Mr. von Trier courted accusations of anti-Americanism -- which, unlike awards, were numerous. Todd McCarthy, the chief film critic for Variety, wrote that ''the identification with Dogville and the United States is total and unambiguous.'' He concluded that ''through his contrived tale of one mistreated woman, who is devious herself, von Trier indicts as being unfit to inhabit the earth a country that has surely attracted, and given opportunity to, more people onto its shores than any other in the history of the world.''
Mr. von Trier does his part to further this reading. The film's violent denouement is followed by a sudden, gear-grinding shift from allegory to documentary, as the screen fills with photographs of destitute and miserable Americans, starting with Dorothea Lange's dust bowl families and running through the present. The pictures, accompanied by David Bowie's jaunty ''Young Americans,'' seem to taunt us with a reality we would prefer to ignore, and to scold us for believing, like those benighted Dogvilleans, in our own unshakable goodness.
Or something like that. The coda is so heavy-handed it's hard to take it seriously at all. ''Of course, it's cheating a bit to put these pictures up, you might say,'' Mr. von Trier conceded. ''But I can't deny that I am by heart a socialist, and therefore the American system as I see it would make a situation like this more probable, maybe push people more quickly to the wrong side. My primitive view is that if a system is partly built on the idea that you are the maker of your own happiness, then of course poor people are miserable in the sense that they failed completely. Whereas in other countries, you might look at that more as a failure of the society.''
To take ''Dogville'' primarily as the vehicle for this view, however, is to make it a much less interesting movie than it is. You might as well say that ''Dancer in the Dark,'' which has a bizarre plot involving blindness -- and which ends very badly, indeed -- is a treatise against privatized health care and capital punishment, aspects of modern American society most likely to appall the citizens of Western European social democracies. Expanding the possible interpretation of ''Dogville'' (if not his view of human nature), Mr. Von Trier offered, ''I think the point to the film is that evil can arise anywhere, as long as the situation is right.'' It is the pervasiveness of that evil -- the thoroughness of the film's pessimism -- that may seem most alien of all to doggedly optimistic American sensibilities.
''Dogville'' belongs in the company of other European dreams about America -- Kafka's ''Amerika,'' of course, but also Bertolt Brecht's plays set among the gangsters of Chicago and films like Wim Wenders's ''Paris, Texas'' and Michelangelo Antonioni's ''Zabriskie Point.'' To call these various works dreams is to caution against taking them too literally, and also to suggest that they may be most interesting for what they reveal about the dreamers. In spite of being led by James Caan, who once played Sonny Corleone, the black-hatted thugs who roll into Dogville have more in common with Brecht's gangsters, who were Nazis in disguise, than with our own tradition of sentimental, mama's-boy mobsters from ''The Public Enemy'' to ''The Sopranos.'' And the citizens of Dogville, for all their exaggerated frontier folksiness, seem to have been projected from the anxious unconscious of Europe. They are rooted to the spot, immobilized by habit and prejudice, incapable of flight or self-invention, and the social pathology to which they -- and Grace -- fall prey looks more like fascism than like our homegrown forms of viciousness and intolerance.
''Manderlay,'' the middle film in Mr. von Trier's American trilogy, will tackle a more identifiably American problem -- racism and the legacy of slavery -- and it will be interesting to see what European demons haunt its spartan stage. It is also interesting to note that, now that Ms. Kidman has moved on, the part of Grace will be played by Bryce Howard, a young actress who, as Mr. von Trier perhaps coyly put it, ''turned out to be the daughter of an American director, Ron Howard.'' And while it may be going too far to suggest a link between Dogville and Mayberry -- or, for that matter, between Dogville and Whoville -- Mr. von Trier's austere art film may be closer to the mess and ruckus of American popular culture than he knows, and not only because of his fondness for populating his allegorical landscapes with movie stars. Part of being American is participating in an endless argument about what America means, an argument to which ''Dogville'' adds an unignorable, if curiously accented, voice.
And Dogville may be closer than we think. Shortly after a recent screening of the film, I turned on the television and stumbled on another small town in Colorado, rendered in a self-consciously minimalist style, where American piety is subjected to systematic and brutal deconstruction. Sometimes travel to a strange place gives you a new perspective on home, and a new appreciation for it. After Dogville, South Park will never look quite the same.
MARCH 21, 2004
DOGVILLE, the setting for Lars von Trier's new film of the same name, is a tiny, obscure town in the Colorado Rockies. The adult population numbers about 15, and during the Great Depression, when the film takes place, these people's lives are busy, joyless and harsh. The hard-bitten folk who inhabited the Northwestern factory town in ''Dancer in the Dark,'' Mr. von Trier's previous foray into Americana, at least had a community theater, but the most Dogville can offer is some meetings presided over by a self-styled intellectual named Tom Edison Jr. (the English actor Paul Bettany).
Dogville is, in short, a place where life seems to have been reduced to its crude minimum. A modern American happening upon ''Dogville,'' which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, will quickly become aware of what has been omitted. ''I deliberately took out religion,'' Mr. von Trier said in a recent telephone interview. Also, he might have added, such quintessential American passions as sports, popular culture and politics: one of the citizens does own a radio, but he snaps it off as soon as one of President Roosevelt's fireside chats comes over the airwaves. In ''Dancer in the Dark'' you could glimpse a framed photograph of President Eisenhower hanging on the wall, a curious touch in a movie supposedly set in 1964, but nonetheless a scrambled signal of some connection between the fictitious characters and the actual political entity they are supposed to inhabit. In the 1930's in Dogville, where the brief appearance of a constable is the only sign of the existence of the state, there are no pictures of F. D. R. hanging on the wall.
Then again, there aren't any walls. Nor are there any trees or houses or enclosed physical structures of any kind. There is nothing, in short, to mark Dogville as a place, American or otherwise: aside from one or two skeletal structures, an outcropping or two of painted styrofoam and a few pieces of furniture, Dogville is conjured out of chalk outlines and stark stage effects. The floor plans of the tiny houses are stenciled on the ground, as are invisible streets and phantom landmarks like the prized gooseberry bushes and the nonexistent dog whose nonetheless audible bark
signals the arrival of a stranger.
What happens to that stranger -- a woman named Grace, played with a flawless combination of vulnerability and cunning by Nicole Kidman -- constitutes Mr. Von Trier's latest American tragedy. Young Tom Edison, worried without any obvious reason that the town is in need of ''moral rearmament,'' wishes for a test of its virtues, a real-life ''illustration'' (one of his favorite words) of his vague notions of community and responsibility. Grace, who is fleeing from big-city gangsters, seems to offer a perfect opportunity. She is reluctant to impose on the town's kindness but also utterly helpless. Dogville rises to the challenge of her presence by opening its arms in generosity, and then enclosing her in a pious, self-justifying embrace of indentured servitude, humiliation and, eventually, sexual slavery.
It has been frequently noted that Mr. von Trier, a Dane, has never been to the United States. It was so frequently noted in discussions of ''Dancer'' that he was provoked to conceive an entire American trilogy, and to pre-empt objections by noting, in press materials, that the makers of ''Casablanca'' had never been to Morocco. Nor had Kafka been to the United States while writing ''Amerika.'' ''I must say I'm very fond of this idea that Kafka didn't go to America,'' Mr. von Trier said. ''For me it's about America, even though it's about what he had seen in Europe. Somehow America is a canvas that you can use. Of course the film is, like Kafka's book, inspired by my own meeting with not Americans but mostly Danish people. It could be a place anywhere.''
Tom Edison, who is at once Mr. von Trier's alter ego and, ultimately, his villain, might endorse this interpretation. Toward the end of the movie, after the true, ugly nature of the town and its people has been revealed, he conceives a novel -- maybe even a trilogy -- about the experiences of a town just like it. ''Why not just call it Dogville?'' Grace asks. ''No, no,'' he says, ''it has to be universal. A lot of writers make that mistake.'' It is a mistake Mr. von Trier is far too clever to avoid.
What makes ''Dogville'' so fascinating, and so troubling, is the tension between the universal and the specific. ''You mean, why not just call it Denmark?'' Mr. von Trier responded, mockingly, when asked about his choice. Because, of course, it couldn't possibly be Denmark. It's America. The script may have been written in Danish and then translated into the strange, mock-literary English the characters speak. The characters themselves may be played by a motley, international collection of actors ranging from Lauren Bacall to Chloë Sevigny to Stellan Skarsgard. (You can hardly expect a man who once cast Catherine Deneuve as a factory worker named Kathy to care much about authenticity.) But the clothes and folkways of Dogville harken unmistakably back to the land of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain and Sherwood Anderson, whose observations have been filtered through Mr. von Trier's equally unmistakable European sensibility. The movie presents a curious blend of the alien and the familiar: it is a fantasy of America, but not an American fantasy.
The sight of actors all occupying the same barren stage, and the knowledge that the camera will never leave this spot, induce a squirming, suffocating sense of claustrophobia, which may be part of Mr. von Trier's point. In his pitiless view, everyone lives in a fundamental state of isolation, but no one is ever alone. The illusion of intimacy is sustained by the shaky close-ups that have become hallmarks of his intrusive, unnerving camera style, but even the most secret moments seem at the same time to occur in full public view. One of the film's grimmest scenes, the first of several rapes, takes place in one of the houses, and the camera pulls back through the invisible walls to the streets of the town, where the other Dogvilleans are going about their desultory business. Their obliviousness to what is taking place in the children's bedroom over at Vera and Chuck's house seems like a malign and active refusal to acknowledge it, a symbol of the repressive, willed innocence that is among the town's many sins. The people of Dogville are proud, hypocritical and never more dangerous than when they are convinced of the righteousness of their actions. Grace, as it happens, may not be much better.
Who are these people? What is this place? The formal audacity of ''Dogville'' is hard to separate from the provocations of its story and setting. Mr. von Trier, who has never seen the United States, nonetheless seems to suggest that he can see through it -- through us. It is hardly surprising that some Americans have taken this personally, and responded to this brutal allegory in a defensive tone. Last spring in Cannes, where geopolitical tensions between Europe and the United States hung in the air like a bad smell, Mr. von Trier courted accusations of anti-Americanism -- which, unlike awards, were numerous. Todd McCarthy, the chief film critic for Variety, wrote that ''the identification with Dogville and the United States is total and unambiguous.'' He concluded that ''through his contrived tale of one mistreated woman, who is devious herself, von Trier indicts as being unfit to inhabit the earth a country that has surely attracted, and given opportunity to, more people onto its shores than any other in the history of the world.''
Mr. von Trier does his part to further this reading. The film's violent denouement is followed by a sudden, gear-grinding shift from allegory to documentary, as the screen fills with photographs of destitute and miserable Americans, starting with Dorothea Lange's dust bowl families and running through the present. The pictures, accompanied by David Bowie's jaunty ''Young Americans,'' seem to taunt us with a reality we would prefer to ignore, and to scold us for believing, like those benighted Dogvilleans, in our own unshakable goodness.
Or something like that. The coda is so heavy-handed it's hard to take it seriously at all. ''Of course, it's cheating a bit to put these pictures up, you might say,'' Mr. von Trier conceded. ''But I can't deny that I am by heart a socialist, and therefore the American system as I see it would make a situation like this more probable, maybe push people more quickly to the wrong side. My primitive view is that if a system is partly built on the idea that you are the maker of your own happiness, then of course poor people are miserable in the sense that they failed completely. Whereas in other countries, you might look at that more as a failure of the society.''
To take ''Dogville'' primarily as the vehicle for this view, however, is to make it a much less interesting movie than it is. You might as well say that ''Dancer in the Dark,'' which has a bizarre plot involving blindness -- and which ends very badly, indeed -- is a treatise against privatized health care and capital punishment, aspects of modern American society most likely to appall the citizens of Western European social democracies. Expanding the possible interpretation of ''Dogville'' (if not his view of human nature), Mr. Von Trier offered, ''I think the point to the film is that evil can arise anywhere, as long as the situation is right.'' It is the pervasiveness of that evil -- the thoroughness of the film's pessimism -- that may seem most alien of all to doggedly optimistic American sensibilities.
''Dogville'' belongs in the company of other European dreams about America -- Kafka's ''Amerika,'' of course, but also Bertolt Brecht's plays set among the gangsters of Chicago and films like Wim Wenders's ''Paris, Texas'' and Michelangelo Antonioni's ''Zabriskie Point.'' To call these various works dreams is to caution against taking them too literally, and also to suggest that they may be most interesting for what they reveal about the dreamers. In spite of being led by James Caan, who once played Sonny Corleone, the black-hatted thugs who roll into Dogville have more in common with Brecht's gangsters, who were Nazis in disguise, than with our own tradition of sentimental, mama's-boy mobsters from ''The Public Enemy'' to ''The Sopranos.'' And the citizens of Dogville, for all their exaggerated frontier folksiness, seem to have been projected from the anxious unconscious of Europe. They are rooted to the spot, immobilized by habit and prejudice, incapable of flight or self-invention, and the social pathology to which they -- and Grace -- fall prey looks more like fascism than like our homegrown forms of viciousness and intolerance.
''Manderlay,'' the middle film in Mr. von Trier's American trilogy, will tackle a more identifiably American problem -- racism and the legacy of slavery -- and it will be interesting to see what European demons haunt its spartan stage. It is also interesting to note that, now that Ms. Kidman has moved on, the part of Grace will be played by Bryce Howard, a young actress who, as Mr. von Trier perhaps coyly put it, ''turned out to be the daughter of an American director, Ron Howard.'' And while it may be going too far to suggest a link between Dogville and Mayberry -- or, for that matter, between Dogville and Whoville -- Mr. von Trier's austere art film may be closer to the mess and ruckus of American popular culture than he knows, and not only because of his fondness for populating his allegorical landscapes with movie stars. Part of being American is participating in an endless argument about what America means, an argument to which ''Dogville'' adds an unignorable, if curiously accented, voice.
And Dogville may be closer than we think. Shortly after a recent screening of the film, I turned on the television and stumbled on another small town in Colorado, rendered in a self-consciously minimalist style, where American piety is subjected to systematic and brutal deconstruction. Sometimes travel to a strange place gives you a new perspective on home, and a new appreciation for it. After Dogville, South Park will never look quite the same.